Keeping Out the Rain
by Kitsubasa
Summary: A rainy day, a bedraggled teenager, a million reasons not to stop to help him out- and little regrets that follow you to the grave.


My umbrella was patterned with white and red stripes—four of each, extending from the center out to the circumference like rays of the sun. I had bought it barely a month before that day—after breaking my last one (a fragile crimson thing I'd picked up for $3 at some bargain store), I'd been desperate for something to cover myself from the rain and it was the first thing I found during the next torrential downpour. It was cheap, only $10 or so, but it did the job. The handle wasn't too rough on my hands, it didn't snap when the wind picked up, and most importantly, it kept the rain out without fail. I'd learnt from experience that sometimes umbrellas could be unreliable when it came to doing their job of protecting me from the elements, so that was almost surprising. It was also probably why I felt so guilty.

That week the city got record-breaking rain: heaviest since the storms of 1986, I heard. The gutters flooded and the drains vomited out anything that tried to squeeze its way into them. There were a few car accidents on the slippery roads, and I remember that a friend of a friend got her leg broken in a massive pile-up near Hutton parkway. Weeks like that weigh heavy on everyone—normally carefree people find themselves pensive and moody, and the cranky get crankier. I've yet to meet someone whose mood is improved by grey skies.

The Thursday of that week was when we got the worst of it. Taking a step out from the awnings of my office entranceway was like ordering a bucket of water to be dumped on my head. Going to and from the building was an exercise in skillful umbrella opening: you would slip out and, as you did so, manipulate it so that, with the flick of a wrist, you were shielded from the damp. When I left work that day, I was too slow in putting it up- the slides catching and the umbrella hitting into things. The predictable result? I was soaked. My shirt turned a burnt orange as the water worked through it, darkening it. My hair flopped down unceremoniously as the gel washed out of it. Needless to say, I didn't come out of that experience feeling very happy with myself.

By the time I had my umbrella up, the action felt altogether pointless, since I was already drenched—and, as a result of that, freezing—but nevertheless, I held it still up there and began to make my way home. People avoided me as I walked, dodging the edges of my umbrella and skirting around my damp clothes, wanting to stay warm and dry themselves. It made the whole experience even lonelier than usual—it made me feel like some sort of freak to be avoided, or something along those lines. My dark orange shirt and my flat hair and my unimpressed expression—it would've been an entertaining sight, I guess.

It was in this state that I came upon the boy. He couldn't have been any more than thirteen, and even that was a stretch—he had an almost worryingly small frame, and glasses that seemed far too large on him. Wiry red hair curled out from all over his head, and he wore an expression that matched mine. He was dissatisfied. And, like me, every inch of him—his hair, his checked shirt, his jeans, his worn, orange shoes—was soaked through with water. To add to the sight, he had mud running all up his pants and his forearms, as though he'd fallen over somewhere along the way.

He stood next to the bus stop, holding a book over his head to try and keep some of the rain off him—his tactics were failing, though, and the only thing he was succeeding at doing was ensuring that his copy of Dracula would be forever illegible after that day. Shuffling uncomfortably, he looked up and down the road, the look on his face one that I recognized from my own teenage years: _'the bus was due ten minutes ago and I want to get home'_.

I passed by the boy. I passed by him wordlessly. But, as I was disappearing, my feet carrying me away from him as I hurried for home, I glanced back and I saw him staring at me, his blue eyes twitching sorrowfully as he flicked his attention towards my umbrella. He wanted to know why life was unfair: why he'd be stuck there another fourteen minutes while I had an umbrella and my apartment was only five minute's walk away. He wanted to know why the bus was always late when it rained, and why his parents couldn't come and collect him for once. He wanted to know why it wasn't going his way.

For a second I began to turn on one heel, wanting to talk to the boy, give him my umbrella and wipe that sad look off his face. But then I thought better of it: I'd need to buy another umbrella for myself later, and I'd probably come across as a creep, and hey, I was drenched too—that's just how life goes. It rains and you get wet— big deal. So second by second, as I shrugged away each little apprehensive thought I had, movement came back into me and my life started to march forwards again. I had to get home to put the heaters on and get myself a cup of soup. Hell, soup sounded really good then.

And so I left the boy behind to wait for his bus, and I kept moving on my way. But for some reason, ever since then, I've regretted that. I've felt like I could've improved that kid's life somehow by handing him that umbrella and just enduring for those last few minutes it would've taken me going home. I could've kept out the rain for him.

But we're never that selfless, and we're always going to live with guilt. So, nestled in my list of regrets, between being dumped by my first girlfriend and never taking up chess, is not helping that sad kid stranded in the rain.

And that's how it'll be until the day I die.


End file.
